


It's That Subtle Love That Cuts the Deepest

by Birdpeople (DeusExMachina)



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: M/M, Unrequited/ One-sided, You can tell when a Mortal Instruments fic was written by which last name Jace uses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 17:20:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2076501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeusExMachina/pseuds/Birdpeople
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is against the law to fall in love with your parabatai.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's That Subtle Love That Cuts the Deepest

Alec didn’t love Jace at first.

  
In fact, he barely liked him.

  
Actually, he barely even noticed him. Maybe that was wrong. Maybe his lack of hypersensitivity to changes in his environment was the key to him being a shitty shadowhunter in the first place. Whatever.

  
Jace just sort of slipped into his life. Pale and withdrawn for a long time. Not trusting. Not even talking. When Alec looks back on it years later, it seems unbelievable. And Jace still hadn’t seemed vulnerable then. Just unreachable, neutrally sealed away from any human contact.

  
Alec wasn’t sure how it started. It was some time after Jace had opened up to him. They were friends at that point, but no more. Not _parabatai_. By that point he had an image of Jace firmly in mind- an impression of his character which had, up until then, consisted only of fleeting glimpses of distrustful eyes and a stony countenance, lips pressed thin and immobile.

  
Now Jace has filled out in his mind, become defined by his words rather than his silence, by his wit and relentless mobility rather than by his withdrawal. He was gold on gold on gold and he knew how dark shadowhunter gear set off his good looks and prowling tendencies, even at such a young age.

  
Maybe that was when it had really begun.

  
Alec didn’t even recognize it for what it was, at first.

  
Their _parabatai_ ceremony was not the first occasion on which Jace had touched him. It had happened before, the brief, light-fingered focus of Jace marking him, the laughing, forceful contact of sparring.  An arm thrown around his shoulders when Jace needed to rope someone else into a demonstration of his gleeful wit, but apart from that, very little.

  
But after that day, the symptoms worsened.

  
Jace was rarely without a smile of some sort, but Alec found that when he could manage to make Jace laugh, it was the best sound in the world. Intoxicating. So clear it made Alec hold his own breath locked inside his chest, giddy, half-afraid to shatter the sound with a triumphant one of his own.

  
He was afraid he may have withdrawn a little to make room for Jace’s golden vibrancy, may have grown quieter to hear what Jace had to say better.

  
It was okay at first. There was nothing wrong with the fact that Alec could recognize the sound of Jace’s footsteps and came to anticipate him entering any room Alec was occupying. There was nothing unusual about watching Jace when Jace couldn’t see him.

  
Then it had started to hurt. The sight of Jace was accompanied by an uncomfortable vice-like sensation around Alec’s heart. When Jace addressed questions to him, Alec would open his mouth only to find his throat too full of affection to allow words to escape. The sound of Jace’s footsteps was accompanied by the battering of Alec’s pulse.

  
Alec grew distressed, distracted, avoided Jace’s eyes entirely, observing him only when unobserved.

  
He was restless and unrested, his dreams showing him images of Jace returning the helpless affection that must color Alec’s eyes. He took to wandering the Institute at night. More than once, his feet brought him automatically to the door, his hand resting on the handle before he shook himself from his daze. He couldn’t walk the streets at night in this frame of mind, not even glamoured.

_  
Jace would do it._

  
Didn’t matter. He wasn’t Jace.

  
On the nights that he heard Jace’s soft piano playing, he would steer clear of him, find an empty room and curl up, back against the wall and arms around his knees in the moonlight with the faint music.

  
He longed to see Jace’s golden finery painted burning silver in the moonlight, but didn’t dare.

  
That night he didn’t hear music.

  
That night he thought himself alone, staring at the Institute door, willing himself to be brave, telling himself no one would miss him if he stepped out for a while.

  
"Alec?"

  
He must have jumped a mile. By the Angel, when had Jace gotten so quiet?

  
Alec turned, shoulders pressed firmly against the comforting solidity of the Institute door.

  
"Jace?"

  
"Alec, what are you doing?" Jace’s eyes were flat and tired, but they lacked the telltale insomniac shadows that Alec’s had been developing of late.

  
"Nothing," Alec said, almost too quickly. Jace took a worried step forward. "Bad dreams," Alec said desperately. _Please don’t let him come any closer._

  
Jace was mere inches from Alec, the worried twist of his smart, sarcastic mouth evident from this distance. Alec closed his eyes. Jolted at the sensation of the back of Jace’s hand against his forehead.

  
An annoyed noise. Alec felt Jace’s calloused, competent hand slide to the back of his neck, which must be burning from shame and embarrassment.

 _  
Fuck fuck what if he does what mom does and checks my temperature by putting his lips against my forehead?_ Alec’s eyes flew open involuntarily, hands coming up shakily to push Jace away.

  
"I’m going back to bed," he breathed, looking anywhere but at his _parabatai_. Jace moved, automatically allowing Alec past as he made for the stairs.

  
"Do you need me to come?" Jace inquired,"You’re burning up and I wouldn’t want-"

  
"No," Alec choked. "I’m okay. I’m not so useless that I can’t make it to bed by myself."

  
He didn’t turn around. Didn’t wait for Jace to acknowledge or refute what they both knew.

  
He headed straight for Isabel’s room. Didn’t turn on any lights. Wakened her and then slid into bed without invitation, the tears on his cheeks the only answer to her whispered queries. They held each other in silence as they hadn’t done since the first time their parents had journeyed to Alicante without them, leaving them to tuck each other in at night.

  
Later, hours later, as Isabel was about to drop off to sleep again, Alec spoke, gave whispered voice to what he had known for years, what he dreaded, what he had kept locked inside of him in joy, in delirium, and in grief.

  
"It is against the law to fall in love with your _parabatai_.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me tell you, this document is saved on my computer as 'I wrote a Mortal Instruments shit'   
> The ending kinda only makes sense if you read the Infernal Devices books??
> 
> Say hi to me on tumblr at quasi-birdpeople.tumblr.com


End file.
